This Small Hungarian Village Is Home to the World’s Largest Handmade Book

Szinpetri, a quaint village of around 300 people located in northern Hungary, is mostly known for being home to the world’s largest handmade book, a 1.4-tonne heavy tome bound in the leather of 13 Argentinian cows.

The world’s largest handmade book was completed in 2010, by father-son duo Bela Varga and Gábor Varga, two masters in the art of traditional paper-making. It was crated using traditional book-binding techniques adjusted to a much larger scale than usual, and is currently on display at the Szinpetri paper mill, where Bela and Gábor Varga show off their paper-making skills to visitors. The book measures 4.18m x 3.77m, weighs a total of 1,420 kilograms and features 346 pages printed with information on the local flora and fauna.

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Man Has Been Living in Small Barrel at the Top of 25-Meter-Tall Pole for Over 70 Days

Vernon Kruger, a 52-year-old man from Dullstroom, a small town in South Africa, hasn’t set foot on the ground in 73 days, ever since he climbed into his “home in the sky”, a small barrel at the top of a 25-meter-tall pole.

The first time Kruger climbed into his now famous barrel was 22 years ago, as a dare. He was on a an exotic island, during a vacation, when one of his friends said ‘why don’t you break the record for sitting in a tree?’. It was a joke  at first, than it became a dare, so Vernon started looking into it. He learned that an Indonesian man had already broken the record by sitting in a tree for 28 days, but instead of letting it go, his friends suggested he try pole sitting instead. The record stood at 54 days at the time, so the South African set up his own pole and stood on it for 64 days. That was in 1997, and since no one managed to break his world record since, he decided to do it himself.

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This Man Is on a Quest to Build the World’s Largest Coin Pyramid

Three years ago, Corey Nielsen, a middle-aged man from Tolleson, Arizona, embarked on a journey to build the world’s largest pyramid of stacked pennies. He only had a few thousand coins and a dream at the time, but today he’s inching closer to finally accomplishing his goal.

The current record for the world’s largest coin pyramid stands at 1,000,935 coins. It was set in 2014 by Vytautas Jakštas and Domas Jokubauskis, in the small Baltic country of Lithuania, as a way to celebrate the adoption of the euro. In one of his videos, Corey Nielsen claims that they had a team of 100 people working on it – although I haven’t been able to verify if that is true – but he decided he could build an even bigger one by himself. He had built smaller penny pyramids before, but this was a much bigger project, one that would take daily work over multiple years to complete. Well, after almost three years of penny stacking, he’s nearly there.

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Singer Performs for 106 Consecutive Hours to Break Guinness Record, Gets Disqualified

The only thing worse than singing for over 100 hours straight is finding out that it was all in vain. That’s what happened to Dominican singer Carlos Silver who, after performing for 106 consecutive hours in an attempt to set a new world record, learned that his attempt was disqualified by Guinness.

Last week, Dominican artist Carlos Silver performed over 5,000 songs in an attempt to break the Guinness record set by Indian singer Sunil Waghmare, who in 2012 sang for 105 consecutive hours. This was Silver’s second shot at the record for world’s longest singing marathon by an individual, after his unsuccessful attempt in 2016, and this time it looked like he had done it. At the end of his epic 5-day performance, the timer showed that he had been singing for 106.7 hours, over one hour more that Waghmare’s record, but his elation soon turned to disappointment, as Guinness officials disqualified him for breaking the organization’s strict rules.

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Cover Your Ears! Chinese Man Breaks Guinness Record for Highest Vocal Note by a Male

Xiao Lung Wang, a young man from China, set a new Guinness record for the “highest vocal note by a male”, with a truly ear-splitting performance.

Before playing the below video of Wang’s successful record attempt, I strongly advise that you turn down the volume, especially if you’re wearing headphones, and get your dog out of the room, because this guy’s voice is no joke. To be honest, it sounds more like a whistling kettle than a human voice, but according to experts that’s just the sound of an E in the 8th octave, an audio frequency of 5,243 hertz.

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Japanese Man Sets New Guinness Record for Spinning World’s Largest Hula Hoop

Yuya Yamada, a hula hoop street performer from Tokyo, Japan, recently managed to set a new Guinness record after successfully spinning a 5.14 m (16 ft 10 in) aluminium hoop using only his torso.

Also known as “Hoop Man Yu-Ya” in his native country, Yamada is famous for his hula hoop tricks. He can spin a hula hoop while running, spin it vertically using both his head and his backside and can also spin dozens of them at the same time. The guy has incredible coordination, which basically allows him to keep the hoops spinning with virtually every part of his body, but for his latest world record attempt, he needed a completely different approach.

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12-Year-Old Girl Sets Two New World Records for Singing in 102 Different Languages in 6-Hour Long Concert

Suchetha Satish, a 12-year-old Indian girl living in Dubai, recently shattered two Guinness World Records at the same time by singing songs in 102 different languages during an epic concert that lasted 6 hours and 15 minutes.

A seventh grade student at the Indian High School in Dubai, Suchetha only started preparing to break the world record for singing in most languages in a single concert just over a year ago. She already enjoyed singing in several Indian languages, like Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil, as well as English, but she had always been fascinated by foreign languages, and this was an opportunity to learn as many of them as she could and also leave her mark on the world. On January 25, 2018, she 12-year-old girl stunned the audience at the Indian Consulate in Dubai by singing in a whopping 102 languages, for 6 hours and 15 minutes.

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Magician Plans to Walk 32 Km Barefoot on Broken Glass to Raise Money for Autism

Cape Town-based magician and illusionist Russell Fox is attempting to set a new Guinness World Record by walking 32 km barefoot across broken glass. Fox, aged 43, is endeavouring to do it in under 29 hours (the current record).

Aside from earning himself a mention in the record books, Fox hopes to raise funds for the South Africa-based charity Nosh for Josh foundation for those affected with Autism, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and Muscular Dystrophy. Fox himself suffered from epilepsy‚ ADHD‚ Tourette’s and dyslexia as a child, so the foundation is close to his heart. Fox’s chief goal is to send children living with the listed disorders to India for Stem Cell Therapy Operation at the NeuroGen Brain and Spine Institute.

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Meet Cygnus, the Cat with the World’s Longest, Most Luscious Tail

Lauren and Will Powers, of Ferndale, Michigan, don’t need to dust their home like the rest of us. Their cat, Cygnus, does it for them just by walking around the place and wagging his incredibly long and fluffy tail.

Cygnus Regulus Powers was recently featured in the 2018 Guinness Book of Records for having the “longest tail on a domestic cat”. The official measurement put his tail at a whopping 44.66 cm (17.58 inches) from the base of his butt to the end of the “meat” of his tail, but it must have been done a while ago, because in June of last year, his owner Will Powers told Love Meow that Cygnus’ tail already measured 18.4 inches (24 inches, if you count the fluff). And considering that the cute Main Coon was only about a year old at the time, his tail must be considerably longer now.

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Woman with 12.4-Centimeter Eyelashes Sets Guinness Record

To say You Jianxia has long eyelashes would be a gross understatement. The average person’s lashes are between 0.8 and 1.2 cm-long, but the hairs growing on the edges of this woman’s eyelids reach a whopping 12.4 cm. That’s nearly 5-inches!

The 2018 Guinness World Records category for “world’s longest eyelashes” was one of the most popular, with over 500 entries from all around the world, but no one even came close to You Jianxia, a former investment fund director from Shanghai, China. With eyelashes reaching all the way down from her eyelids past her mouth, the 49-year-old easily bagged the world record. When her lashes were officially measured, on 28 June 2016, the longest of them was 12.4 cm, and considering that was a year ago, it’s probably even longer now. If not for the photos of You doing the rounds online, I would never have believed such long natural eyelashes were even possible.

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67-Year-Old Man Has the World’s Largest Collection of Hello Kitty Memorabilia

Hello Kitty was designed to appeal to young girls, but its biggest fan may just be an adult Japanese man. 67-year-old Masao Gunji has been collecting Hello Kitty memorabilia for the last 30 years, and he was recently acknowledged by Guinness Records as the owner of the largest Hello Kitty collection in the world.

Gunji, a retired police officer from Yotsukaido, in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture, bought his first Hello Kitty item over thee decades ago, at a sightseeing spot. He just thought it looked really cute, and it ended up making his stressful job a bit easier. Whenever he would take a look at the cute character, it put a smile on his face and helped him push through whatever hardships he faced. Masao soon became a Hello Kitty fan and started buying all kinds of items featuring Sanrio’s popular creation. But his obsession really kicked in after he retired from the police force.

 

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Meet FORPHEUS, the World’s First Robot Table Tennis Tutor

An advanced robot developed by Japanese electronics company Omron has recently been certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s first robot table tennis tutor. FORPHEUS (Future Omron Robotics Technology for Exploring Possibility of Harmonized Automation with Sinic Theoretics) used machine learning to asses the skills of a human player, adjust its game accordingly and provide tips to help opponents improve their technique.

Unveiled at the Ceatec electronics show in Japan in 2014, FORPHEUS has come a long way in the last three years, especially after developers made a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Originally designed to showcase Omron’s sensor technology, the table tennis-playing robot has now become a Guinness-certified tutor thanks to machine learning. It analyzes data like the human player’s movement, the speed of the ball and the trajectory to determine his opponent’s skill level with around 90% accuracy. FORPHEUS then uses this information to adjust its play style – slow and and easy for beginners, faster and more unpredictable for advanced players.

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70-Year-Old Italian Man Holds Guinness Record for Most University Degrees

Luciano Baietti, a retired school headmaster from the town of Velletri, in Italy, holds the Guinness record for the most university degrees. The 70-year-old currently has 15 bachelors or masters degrees from various universities across Italy, and is getting ready to get his 16th.

Getting more than one college degree is not exactly unheard of, but 15 is apparently quite impressive, since it’s only been done by one man. Although he spends his days working around his house and garden, like most people his age, at night, Luciano Baretti turns into a student again. Every morning, at 3 a.m., as most of the world is sleeping, he wakes up, takes out his books and studies by the light of his desk lamp. He claims that studying helps keep his mind active and that every degree he has obtained has helped broaden his knowledge of the world around him. Plus, getting mentioned in the record books is a nice perk too.

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Tombs with a View at the World’s Tallest Vertical Cemetery

With the remains of around 100 billion dead people currently buried or otherwise stored on this planet, it’s no surprise that we’re running out of space for final resting places. The phrase “six feet under” just isn’t sustainable anymore, so architects are now looking to the sky as an alternative to sprawling ground cemeteries. High-rise cemeteries are becoming increasingly popular all over the world, and the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, in Santos, Brazil, is the highest of them all.

When Pepe Altstut inaugurated the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica cemetery, in 1983, it was only a very small building, but the demand for above-ground tombs with a view was so great that he kept expanding until his cemetery became the tallest in the world. Today, it measures 108 meters tall, features 25,000 storing units (tombs, if you will), several wake rooms, crypts, mausoleums, a peacock garden with its own small waterfall and even a chapel and snack bar on the roof.

While few regular cemeteries can be considered tourist attractions in their own right, the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica is actually one of the most visited landmarks in Santos, and acknowledged as such by the local tourism board. Altstut himself admits that his cemetery is incredibly popular with tourists, and attributes it to the structure’s notoriety as the tallest cemetery on Earth. People from all over the world reportedly come to Santos to see the necropolis where people pay big money for tombs with a view.

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Watermelon Plant That Yielded 131 Fruit in a Single Harvest Sets New World Record

Watermelon plants usually yield only 1 to 4 fruit per harvest, but a new variety created by an agricultural technology company in China has recently set a new Guinness Record after yielding no less than 131 massive fruit.

The Chinese seem to be really good at creating super plants. Just weeks after we posted about their impressive “octopus tomato trees” that can yield over 30,000 fruits at a time, we bring you the “watermelon king”, a new breed of watermelon that can set over 100 viable fruits per plant. Created by the Zhengzhou Research Seedling Technology Co., Ltd., the plant has been acknowledged as the most productive watermelon plant in the world after yielding 131 fruit in just 90 days.

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